The Various Observances of Haruno Sakura
by lil' Miss B
Summary: Team 7 drabbles. Sakura always felt like she was constantly watching their backs. However, this leaves her in the perfect place to observe. No real pairings yet. Possible spoilers for current manga chapters. Future speculation.
1. Known Better

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The Various Observances of Haruno Sakura

Team 7 drabbles. Sakura always felt like she was constantly watching their backs. However, this leaves her in the perfect place to observe.

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**1.(should have) known better.**

Sakura thinks that the worst thing about Sasuke being gone is the looks.

Naruto doesn't seem to notice these looks, or care about them if he does. He'll just stand proudly before her, eyes and cheeks crinkled in a wide grin, proclaiming that he'll bring Sasuke back no matter what. Behind him, the Jounins will blink a few times as if they expected him to have given up already. Their arms may cross and they'll look to one another - _the_ look, one of pity and concern – before sighing and shaking their heads sadly.

If she focuses on just that look too long, she starts to doubt. While they may no longer be kids anymore, they are still not completely adults, and she fears that this kind of unwavering optimism is the last vestige of childhood still waiting to fall away - like baby teeth and fat.

She tries to tell herself to just focus on Naruto and when he comes back home after two and a half years she finds that it is much easier to do. Jounins don't tower over him like they used to and he shines with an unnatural aura of light and confidence, and even maturity.

In those times, she realizes that it's not childish to believe; that Naruto has succeeded in spite of doubt hundreds of times. She really should have known better.

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	2. Add It Up

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**The Various Observances of Haruno Sakura**

Team 7 drabbles. Sakura always felt like she was constantly watching their backs. However, this leaves her in the perfect place to observe.

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**2. Add it up. (Seven Eight Nine)**

She remembers when team seven was four and she wished it were two. When four became two again she wished for four.

Two more came and once again they were four, a different four with two others in their hearts. Really, she thinks they were a split six.

The different four became five again looking for their six. Three more came in sets of three and they were fourteen after one. Then sand pitched two more at them and sixteen sought after seventeen.

A mass division and they were two after one. She had to step back as one went after one, because she knew that he was the only one who could bring the one she love home to the mass numbers who stood firm in their search.

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Tried something different with this one. If you can't understand it...well (shugs) guess all my stories can't be winners, right? Use your imagination.


	3. Blossom

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**The Various Observances of Haruno Sakura**

Team 7 drabbles. Sakura always felt like she was constantly watching their backs. However, this leaves her in the perfect place to observe.

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**3. Blossom.**

She often wonders what Sasuke and Naruto were like during those important years between twelve and fifteen. It was really such a short time compared to the average human lifespan but as she looked upon their differences, she can't help but feel like she missed something important.

Did they go through any fazes? And what kind of hardships or joys did they encounter to make them into the people they were now? She wonders about the little things, like when Sasuke first picked up a sword or lost his blue shirt in exchange for a white one. She wonders how it would have been to watch Naruto's skill increase to be even with his bragging, or just watch his height grow to be even with his elder's eyes.

She thinks about these things, because maybe if she had been there when they happened, it wouldn't have come as such a shock.

But when Naruto bounds ahead of them and Sasuke casually turns her way, asking if she's coming, she just smiles and remembers the future. Because now she knows there will be one for the three of them.

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	4. Balanced

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**The Various Observances of Haruno Sakura**

Team 7 drabbles. Sakura always felt like she was constantly watching their backs. However, this leaves her in the perfect place to observe.

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**4. Balanced.**

The day the reasoning behind the team assignments was explained, Sakura never dreamed she'd be an odd man out. Teams were balanced, she was the brains, Sasuke was the talent, and Naruto was the dead weight. Someone had to be to make up for the greatness that was Sasuke.

It's funny how six months can change things. Pretty soon, Sasuke and Naruto were just about even, and Sakura felt like dead weight.

On the day she realized this, she was camping with her team mates in a cave in the mountains. She felt the need to apologize so she did. Naruto blanched when he heard her reasoning and Sasuke just stared at her the same way he always did. She never dreamed that he'd be the first to contradict her, his voice like steel echoing noisily in the cave.

"Stupid. You're not dead weight."

"Yes I am." Sakura said, not even the words of her greatest love could take away how utterly useless she felt. "You've both got talent and spirit. What purpose do I serve?"

Sasuke sighed and crossed her arms, "Naruto, you tell her."

The blonde's mouth dropped open and he sputtered a bit before saying, "Umm…Sakura, you're got the heart."

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	5. Love Square

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**The Various Observances of Haruno Sakura**

Team 7 drabbles. Sakura always felt like she was constantly watching their backs. However, this leaves her in the perfect place to observe.

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**5. Love square.**

Everyone in Konaha knows that Kakashi loves his R-rated books. He's an adult and interested in adult things. That's how he justified it.

Most people that met Sakura knew that Sakura loves Sasuke. Unlike many other girls Sakura was never afraid to let people know how she felt, even if she always was rejected.

Few people that knew Naruto knew that he loves Sakura. He's never come out and said it, but it doesn't matter if he did. Naruto wore most of his emotions on his sleeve anyway.

Sakura knows that Sasuke loves them all, even if right now he doesn't acknowledge it.

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	6. Chain Reaction

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**The Various Observances of Haruno Sakura**

Team 7 drabbles. Sakura always felt like she was constantly watching their backs. However, this leaves her in the perfect place to observe.

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**6. Chain reaction.**

Sometimes Sakura worries that she doesn't have enough angst in her life to ever be emotionally equal with the rest of her team. She's never lost her parents or a close friend. She's never had to kill a brother to avenge a clan, or kill an organization bent on world domination. Anything she had lost she got back again.

She'd try some nights - when Sasuke, Naruto and Kakashi-sensei were quieter than usual - to go to the place they were at emotionally. She'd do this by tying to angst about her lack of angst. It never worked. Most of the time it just made her laugh, which made Naruto curious, which annoyed Sasuke, which led to a fight and Kakashi scolding them.

This feeling of normality makes her smile again. If she had as much angst as those three, things would never get back to normal.

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End file.
